NLM® Classification 2010 Edition

[Editor's note: The newly revised edition of the NLM Classification is available online as of April 29, 2010.]

The NLM Classification will be available soon online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/class/. It will incorporate all additions and changes to the schedules and index from April 2009 through March 2010. The PDF version will be updated with 2010 classification data by May 11, 2010.

The WX (Hospitals and Other Health Facilities) and WY (Nursing) were the major areas of focus for the 2010 edition.

Some WX and WY class number captions and notes were revised to better reflect the scope of the number. For example:

At WX 11, the caption General history of hospitals and the hospital movement was changed to History.

At WY 150, the caption General works was augmented with Medical-surgical nursing.

At WY 156, the following note was added: Classify here all oncologic nursing regardless of emphasis.

Other Changes to the Schedule

Class number captions were also revised in other schedules. For example:

The header for QU was changed from Biochemistry to Biochemistry. Cell Biology and Genetics to better reflect the content of the schedule.

At W 62, WM 62, WO 62, WS 105.5.I5, and WU 61, social relations was replaced with interpersonal relations in the caption.

At QW 551, the caption was changed from Acquired immunity. Artificial immunity to Adaptive immunity to reflect more current usage.

At QX 50, the caption was changed from Protozoa to Unicellular eukaryota (General or not elsewhere classified) to reflect the reclassification of organisms by MeSH®.

Instructional notes were added or modified to clarify classification practices as needed, e.g., a note was added to WG 141.5.E2: Classify works on fetal echocardiography in WQ 209.

Changes to the Index

Eighty new index entries were created of which thirty-four are from the 2010 MeSH; the remainder are MeSH terms from previous years. All main index headings are linked to the 2010 vocabulary in the MeSH Browser.

Numerous main index entries and cross references were modified to reflect changes in the MeSH vocabulary. In particular, some major categories of index terms affected by MeSH changes were:

Category B organisms, e.g., Sarcodina was deleted from the index.

Category E terms, e.g., Genetic Screening changed to Genetic Testing.

Specialty terms, e.g., the specialty Chemistry, Analytic was added and the technique term was changed from Chemistry, Analytical to Chemistry Techniques, Analytical. Where possible, a distinction is made between the classification of a specialty term versus a technique, phenomenon, or process term.

All index entries pertaining to the aforementioned schedule additions and changes were modified.

Index entries with Library of Congress T schedule numbers were reviewed for accuracy.